In 2009, A Norwegian man, Kristoffer kosh had invested 150 kroner ($26.60). He had forgotten about the investment and discovered it only in 2013 during the course of writing a thesis on encryption.

He was then overwhelmed to know that he had made a killing with his investment and had 5000 bitcoins which if valued at current rate would be 3.1 million USD.

With the meteoric rise of the occult crypto-currency the jury is out on whether it is harbinger of the new economic order or just a pipe dream. Free of central banks’ interference, having ability to transcend the geographical boundaries, crypto-currency is a beautiful concept that could well be the panacea for all the world’s problems only if it had the ubiquity. However, its detractors believe that it’s just another inflating bubble and would eventually bust as all bubbles do.

Is Bitcoin Gold v2.0?

The proponents of the bitcoin argue that bitcoin does everything that gold does in a slightly better way.

Just as gold‘s supply is limited by miners so is bitcoin’s supply limited by algorithm. According to the algorithm only 21 million bitcoins would ever exist with the last bitcoin mined in 2140. Just like gold it too is not controlled by any government and is free from any arbitrary move of central banks that could devalue the currency. In some of the aspects it’s a better store of value than gold. It’s easy to store. Then, it’s easy to divide- it’s divisible to Satoshi, that is, a hundredth of a millionth BTC.

There are reasons galore to draw parallels between the two stores of wealth; however, we should not forget that bitcoin is still a fledgling concept while gold is a mature market.

Brexit and Bitcoin

The proponents of bitcoin argue that in the face of tough times bitcoin indeed has behaved like a safe haven asset. Brexit is a case in point. As the markets were looking for shelter amidst the looming uncertainty regarding the Europe’s future, bitcoin proved to be a pillar of strength and it appreciated against the fiat currencies. On Friday bitcoin surged as much as 8.7% to $680 (Figure-1) that was followed by the brexit vote, which saw the pound plummeting to as low as $1.32 (Figure-2) against the dollar, the lowest level since 1985.

The marked outperformance of bitcoin in recent turbulent times mean nothing to its detractors they argue that it’s thinly traded as compared to all other major asset classes therefore such spikes should not be taken too seriously. Moreover, most of the trading in bitcoin takes place in china. Huobi and OKCoin, two Chinese exchanges, are estimated to account for more than 90% of the total trading volumes globally. The crypto-currency has gained traction in china and is loved by investors and traders alike. Wary of its rise chines authorities have already banned the banks from trading in bitcoins; however, the individuals are still free to speculate.

Many believe that its popularity in china is unlikely to reduce its volatility or help establish it as a reliable international payments system.

The ethical dilemma

Bitcoin is often touted as a revolution in illicit financing. Soon after its launch, bitcoin, caught the fancy of illicit trade market. The anonymous and decentralized nature of bitcoin makes it an ideal financial mechanism for illicit transactions. Leveraging the anonymity provided by bitcoin, Silk road- an online website that traded in illicit products; mostly drugs- was launched in 2011. It was soon shutdown by FBI in February, 2011 and its founder Dread Pirate Roberts was arrested. However, it was soon re-opened as Silk Road 2.0. The online black-market portals such as Silk Road and Black Market Reloaded only accept payment via bitcoin and it can be assumed that without bitcoin the current growth of such black-market portals would not exist.

A Technological Marvel

People might dismiss the chances of bitcoin trumping the fiat currencies but most agree on the fact that bitcoin has given us a technological marvel in the form of blockchain, which is already changing the commerce as we know it.

The bitcoin has no central database or bank. The blockchain is a distributed digital ledger, which is open source and can be downloaded freely by anyone. Every bitcoin transaction is updated with time-stamp in the blockchain and then verified via the blockchain. Every transaction is stored at a unique address in the blockchain and every unique address is associated to a “Bitcoin wallet”, which is akin to a person’s bank account. A bitcoin transaction is essentially transferring a bitcoin, which is a unique code string, to another address. When a transaction is initiated a message is sent to all the users intimating them about the transaction. Then cryptographic methods are used to verify the transaction. The users validate if the funds exist at the source by examining the respective blockchains and when the majority of users concur the transaction is approved and added to the blockchain. All the entries on a blockchain are unique, temper-proof and verifiable by money. So, any attempt to fudge the system would be highlighted immediately.

Blockchain technology can be used in a whole host of sectors. It can be used to track shipments, lost bond & share certificates, legal documents. Another concept “World identity” is being promoted nowadays, where all the users would exist on a block chain and all their data would be associated to their address on the blockchain. Big institutions are putting their focus on utilizing the technology to reduce frauds and to make it easier to reconcile trades. At least 25 major investment banks including UBS, HSBC and Goldman Sachs have joined a startup, R3CEV, to develop common standards.

Infosys has also set its foot in the sector with its subsidiary, EdgeVerve, a blockchain network.

Bitcoin might or might not gain acceptance as the world’s currency but it has definitely given us a very powerful technology, blockchain, which could help solve a lot of problems.